Caruso begins work @ NITEL

The newly appointed Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL), Mr. Kevin Caruso, on Monday commenced work in his office at the telco’s headquarters in Abuja.

Caruso accompanied by Vice President, Corporate Communications, Transnational Corporation, Mr. Adedayo Ojo and General Manager Business Development, Mr. Nicholas Okoro, met with the senior management staff of the company.

He used the platform to rekindle hope for the workforce, saying his priority is to restore NITEL’s operations within the shortest period of time before the resale of 51 per cent equity of the company to a new core investor.

Caruso also said the problems of the company were not new to him but solicited the cooperation of the worker force in order to achieve team result.

He pledged to put emphasis on staff welfare in order to motivate them to achieve the desired result within the shortest possible time before privatisation.

“We want to get things working again for our workers. We want to get the company back in shape. I certainly cannot fix all the problems myself. So we have to work together. “We have to ensure that NITEL is restored before privatisation. Even if we have just a month before privatisation, we have to do it. This will ensure that every stakeholder including the Federal Government and the investor get adequate value from the sale,” Caruso said.

He equally said that it was only when NITEL was properly positioned that all shareholders would maximize the value of their equity, emphasizing on Transcorp’s desire to turn around the company.

The members of NITEL management who were at the first meeting with the new CEO expressed confidence in the capacity of the telecom company to bounce back into reckoning.
Deputy General Manager, Legal and Regulatory, Mr. Garuba Jubrin, said the resumption of duty by Caruso has ended the long anxiety of the workers over the leadership gap occasioned since former Acting Managing Director, Mr. Matthew Dike, left office.

“We have every reason to be optimistic given the impressive background of the new CEO,” he said.

For the Deputy General Manager, Customer Care, Mrs. Orji told Caruso that although NITEL had loyal customers, their patronage had been tampered with as a result of network performance and asked for immediate actions to restore quality of service.

Head of Finance, Mr. Kevin Uche, noted that Transcorp had just released a cheque for the payment of one month salary to reduce the backlog of salary arrears.

He regretted that Transcorp always had to source for money from outside the organisation to meet staff obligations adding that the workers were eager to start generating enough money to take care of the company’s operations.


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